Friday, March 04, 2011

Conservatives in disarray

Noticing a growing fracture between the traditional funders of the conservative movement and the Republicans dancing to Tea Party polka in Congress. This latest manifestation went pretty much under the radar. Find it rather stunning that Richard Mellon Scaife came out in public defense of Planned Parenthood. From his editorial:

Now the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives — urged on by conservatives opposed to abortion — has voted to defund Planned Parenthood.

On this issue, Republicans and conservatives are dead wrong. [...]

Abortions are a minor aspect of Planned Parenthood’s mission to provide reproductive health care, education and other services to Americans, regardless of income.

More than 90 percent of its work focuses on preventing unintended pregnancies that almost inevitably lead to unwanted, neglected and abused children.

It appears Scaife can see the edge of the cliff. Of course the Tea Party Congresscreatures aren't going to listen. It's clear they intend to leap into the abyss.

4 Comments:

The difference between our fathers' GOP and today's is more than cosmetic. The goal of the Tea Partiers seems to be not only to reduce government but to destroy it.

They won't realize just what that means until their children suffer constant asthma attacks because the air has been fouled, their families are sickened by the tainted food they've purchased at the local market, and their homes burn down because the fire fighters can't get their in time because of badly maintained roads.

Truly, the GOP has last its grip on reality entirely. For the leaders, it's about power and money. For the deluded followers, they're hellbent on pissing off liberals, even if it kills them. They don't care, as long as they think they won something.

Interesting, what Schaife said. But he doesn't have a history, so far as I'm aware, of donating to social conservatives. He famously interviewed Hillary Clinton during the primaries and declared her impressive, and his newspapers endorsed her glowingly. I doubt the fact that he disagrees with some on the right to some small degree on social issues makes him a more perceptive on the direction of the party than he has been before, so reflects any particular schism in the conservative movement that hasn't been there in the past.